David Mark Brown

Dark goings-on are afoot in David Mark Brown’s alternate-history Texas. Actually a lot of them are going on *under*foot because the twitcher outbreak that’s the focus of this story takes place in a mining community. If you’re claustrophobic, you might find some of the underground scenes tricky — best seek medical advice before reading this novel.

Several different forces are at work here in this novel, each with their own agenda, with alliances and betrayals enough to keep you on your toes, but not enough to confuse you. The various parties are sucked into the outbreak of a strange disease in a mining town. Supposedly dead people look suspiciously similar to the ‘twitchers’ who have infested the town (or possibly liberated it, depending on your point of view).

I read an earlier book in the series: A Fistful of Reefer. I thoroughly enjoyed that book with its wide-open vistas and possibilities. Twitch and Die! has more of a close-up feel. The characters are dark and brooding; there’s a little less sense of wild adventure and more hopelessness. Dark it might be, but the author still has plenty of scenes of humor, exuberance and even romance, without them feeling tacked on.

This is a fully standalone novel, and yet I enjoy the big picture in the background: big ideas and long-running plot- and character-development. There are many more stores in this series, and one is bundled with this book: McCutchen’s Bones, which is a novella from the perspective of the Texas Ranger character, or ex-ranger by the time of the story. It’s a good tale in its own right and illustrates how the author is adept at taking his setting and his principal characters and using them to write very different tales.… (plus d'informations)